Under-age training misconduct

Choochtown

Widdensushi wrote: »

How did they know that the club culture accommodated it if they bypassed the club, the disregard for the children's welfare could also be seen to be by the parents, if they didn't like the way it was going it would have been alot easier on the children to take them out of the club, rather than putting them through this drama.

Putting your 10 year old child in with the Under 14s to prove a point is another way of disregarding your child's welfare.

glic71rods46t0

Choochtown wrote: »

And what would the complaint to the Gardai be?

I actually agree with you. If there was a genuine complaint then go to the Gardai.

Why go to Paul Kimmage?

You need to ask the parents that question. I would guess that they were reacting to a campaign against them in their local community and maybe they are a bit smarter than the village idiots

Bonniedog

Kimmage hates "the gah". Wrote an article last year which he began with reference to seeing exciting matches and then let the mask slip with sh"t about cheating and violence on the pitch.

There are undoubtedly issues in that club but this is like a fkn row over bingo calling or who was next on the pool table becoming the subject of a rival to "All the Presidents Men"!

Okay, Paul, your sport is something people do to get to work and is totally corrupt. You were part of it yourself.

You will have to do better to take down the most popular sports in the country. Get inline behind Gerry Kiernan and all the other bitter fkers.

Choochtown

9vp63o4jhfa1qr wrote: »

You need to ask the parents that question. I would guess that they were reacting to a campaign against them in their local community and maybe they are a bit smarter than the village idiots

What campaign? What "village idiots"?

More innuendo.

glic71rods46t0

Choochtown wrote: »

Putting your 10 year old child in with the Under 14s to prove a point is another way of disregarding your child's welfare.

Depends on the physique of the kids but let's not get in the way of your deflection from institutional abandonment of child welfare guidelines

Choochtown

9vp63o4jhfa1qr wrote: »

Depends on the physique of the kids but let's not get in the way of your deflection from institutional abandonment of child welfare guidelines

Institutional?

Are you suggesting that there is widespread child welfare issues within the GAA?

glic71rods46t0

Choochtown wrote: »

What campaign? What "village idiots"?

More innuendo.

You need to read the story. Its all explained there.

glic71rods46t0

Choochtown wrote: »

Institutional?

Are you suggesting that there is widespread child welfare issues within the GAA?

The club is an institution.

Choochtown

9vp63o4jhfa1qr wrote: »

The club is an institution.

Less of the insults please.

institutional
(ɪnstɪtjuːʃənəl , US -tuː- )
1. adjective [ADJECTIVE noun]
Institutional means relating to a large organization, for example a university, bank, or church.

eg. the GAA

glic71rods46t0

Widdensushi wrote: »

How did they know that the club culture accommodated it if they bypassed the club, the disregard for the children's welfare could also be seen to be by the parents, if they didn't like the way it was going it would have been alot easier on the children to take them out of the club, rather than putting them through this drama.

Somehow it's the parents fault???

Choochtown

9vp63o4jhfa1qr wrote: »

You need to read the story. Its all explained there.

No it's insinuated there.

Big difference.

Don't fall for Kimmage's emotive language.

Deal with the facts. "Complainant A" met a neighbour at the hotel. (or so they claimed) and this becomes in your words ... "a campaign against them"

Mycroft H

Bonniedog wrote: »

Kimmage hates "the gah". Wrote an article last year which he began with reference to seeing exciting matches and then let the mask slip with sh"t about cheating and violence on the pitch.

There are undoubtedly issues in that club but this is like a fkn row over bingo calling or who was next on the pool table becoming the subject of a rival to "All the Presidents Men"!

Okay, Paul, your sport is something people do to get to work and is totally corrupt. You were part of it yourself.

You will have to do better to take down the most popular sports in the country. Get inline behind Gerry Kiernan and all the other bitter fkers.

Kimmage was different.   Got out when he seen the real side of corruption and doping.  Fought tooth and nail to expose it and it damn near ruined him.  Don't think it's anything to do with the gaa but more about the principal of malpractice.

Tell me how

Mycroft H wrote:

Kimmage was different. Got out when he seen the real side of corruption and doping. Fought tooth and nail to expose it and it damn near ruined him. Don't think it's anything to do with the gaa but more about the principal of malpractice.

Agreed. Say what you want about Kimmage, but he's consistent.
Across all sports.

If he hadn't been a sports person, people would say "What do you know. You're just a hack."

WHL

I’m involved in soccer while my young lad plays soccer and GAA. Why is it being insinuated that this is anti-GAA. If everything reported is true, the club are in the wrong. The GAA have investigated and suspended the club from juvenile activity until they sort it out. Is this not positive. I don’t know of any soccer, rugby or any other club suspended in a similar manner by their parent association. It’s not about whether the U10 player or the U12 coach and club secretary are right. It’s about an U10 player having a grievance and whether the club were willing to investigate properly.
I think that the GAA were slow to react but they have done the right thing - and I have no evidence that other sporting organisations would do the right thing in similar circumstances. Fair dues to the GAA

Trasna1

Choochtown wrote: »

Putting your 10 year old child in with the Under 14s to prove a point is another way of disregarding your child's welfare.

Whataboutery at it's finest.

The two issues here are interlinked. You have a sweary U12 coach where some of the lads didn't want to play for his team. The club executive should have dealt with this coach and told him to tone down his behaviour. It doesn't matter how much of a stalwart, servant or how good of a man he otherwise is.

The failure to deal with the first problem means the second problem presents itself: children trying to tog out for the next level up. It's not made clear why the secretary was so upset at two young lads doing this although I can think of reasons - like perhaps encouraging other players to leave U12, but he handled it terribly. If the club we're unhappy with 11 year olds playing U14, they shouldn't have been let tog out. They should have been brought to their parents and the situation explained to them. And so what if noses were put out of joint.

At the end of the day, what we are talking about is a sports club, nothing more - that perspective should not be lost. That secretary should be thanking his lucky stars that those lads didn't concoct a much more sinister story.

Of course the follow up after the complaints was handled shambolically. Total head in the sand stuff until they had to deal with it. Finally forced to deal with it, they then circled the wagons.

evolving_doors

Stoner wrote: »

That's the big if.

It does not read well if true, the selective meetings etc are things we hear about at many clubs. They are never positive.

Also most importantly imo, we've only heard one side of the story.

I'd rather kimmage didn't write this one, I do think he has an issue with the GAA, I also think he wouldn't know he had an issue if he had one as he's so sure of his unbiased standing.

I've seen parents, even within my own family take a different twist on decisions involving their kids and selection.

I'm not sure that naming the selector was necessary, it seems like a vendetta.

15/16 signitures is a lot for one team/ club. I assume that's true and that's a very important verified detail.

Not getting a guy you call 4 times is not great, send an email, possibly that option was not available, but the build up to this in the paper is ridiculous imo.

It looks like this should have been handled better by the club, but kimmage is not the man to deliver a message about the GAA, it would have more credibility if someone else did it.

Certainly you wouldn't like your child addressed by a adult without another adult present, that is a big no no. How could you get that worked up with two 10 year olds anyway?

Well if anything Kimmage has flipped the tables then. Those parents were being set up publicly without a right of reply.

The boys/parents were vilified publicly at the meeting, no? Of course never named at the gathering, but every Joe in the town knew who it was.
That seemed like a vendetta to me anyway.

WHL

It is indisputable that the parents here thought that their child was treated wrongly. It was investigated by the GAA and they took the decision to suspend a major club. That must be laudable. I don’t know of any soccer or rugby club that treated kids equally unfairly and were investigated in a similar manner. However from my soccer knowledge I would be surprised if there were not parents out there who were equally upset by a coach’es behaviour. Were these incidences investigated in a similar manner and, if culpable, were sports clubs from other organisations also suspended. I don’t know the answer but I’d like to!

evolving_doors

Trasna1 wrote: »

Whataboutery at it's finest.

The two issues here are interlinked. You have a sweary U12 coach where some of the lads didn't want to play for his team. The club executive should have dealt with this coach and told him to tone down his behaviour. It doesn't matter how much of a stalwart, servant or how good of a man he otherwise is.

The failure to deal with the first problem means the second problem presents itself: children trying to together out for the next level up. It's not made clear why the secretary was so upset at two young lads doing this although I can think of reasons - like perhaps encouraging other players to leave U12, but he handled it terribly. If the club we're unhappy with 11 year olds playing U14, they shouldn't have been let tog out. They should have been brought to their parents and the situation explained to them. And so what if noses were put out of joint.

At the end of the day, what we are talking about is a sports club, nothing more - that perspective should not be lost. That secretary should be thanking his lucky stars that those lads didn't concoct a much more sinister story.

Of course the follow up after the complaints was handled shambolically. Total head in the sand stuff until they had to deal with it. Finally forced to deal with it, they then circled the wagons.

I agree 100% with everything above except the underlined part.
The lines between a mere sports club and community aren't so distinct. For many folk the sports club IS the community.

e.g.

"We made a mistake and brought our son," ‘Complainant B' says. "We walked into the hotel and there were people from the club everywhere — the restaurant, the foyer, the corridors, everywhere . . . I met one of my neighbours and asked, ‘What are you doing here?' She says: ‘I can't tell you that.'

Similarly they were allowed (if not encouraged) to be denigrated publicly by a large cohort from that community.

ad language is part of the game."

"If these guys are punished you'll get nobody to do anything next year. The club will fall apart!"

Then the spotlight turned to the complainants.

"I think ye should tell us who's making the complaint?"

"Is it true they bypassed the club and went straight to Croke Park?"

"It sounds like an agenda."

"Are they here?"

(Laughs)

"What was their evidence like?"

"Were they well prepared?"

"It's hard to know," the secretary replied.

"That's open to interpretation," the treasurer said.

The audience laughed.

Did anyone offer another view at the meeting?

joebloggs32

evolving_doors wrote: »

I'm condoningthe language... actually the GAA do too.

A very minor incident!!!

As a teacher if I swore at kids and detained them in a room on my own to tear strips out of them like that. I would be totally dragged over the coals.
Then to circle the bandwagons and isolate 2 families from a community! I thought those days were over. Those other parents who got caught up in it should have smelled a rat when they were summoned to a meeting.

It's funny because it's true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guT76kAPYs0

As a teacher I know that there is always two sides to every story.
The article claims he closed the dressing room door, the club represntitive refutes this.
Can anyone definitely confirm it did or didn't happen?
Secondly he did not speak to one child alone, there were two of them. He may not have tore strips off them but what he was telling them according to the club representative was that they couldn't come again to u14 die to their age, something I would agree with as a general rule. The kids may have heard the words your not getting a jersey again and failed to process what may have followed. I often find this happening with kids as a teacher.
On the other hand maybe he did tear strips off them. I wasn't there along with everyone else here discussing this, but most people here have passed judgement on this incident based on what kimmage has written, a bit like the recent rape case in the north where very polarised views were formed with limited information.

I would say the club could have reacted to subsequent events better, but remember the club officials are all volunteering and the croke park officials are lprofessional civil servants who seem to think that they can expect the same high standards in running a voluntary club that they themselves apply to their professional life.

Gravelly

joebloggs32 wrote: »

the club officials are all volunteering

I see this "he was only a volunteer" excuse being raised time and again on this thread, and have heard it raised as an excuse for unprofessional/stupid/biased behaviour in clubs on numerous occasions. I've volunteered for all of my adult life in sports coaching, and would never use this as an excuse. If someone expects to be paid for basic human decency or adherence to the rules THEN THEY SHOULDN'T BE COACHING KIDS. It frightens me that this needs to be pointed out. Every person coaching kids nowadays has gone through at least a basic coaching course and a child protection course - no excuses, no bullshït, if you can't or don't want to do the right thing, don't coach kids.

joebloggs32

Trasna1 wrote: »

Whataboutery at it's finest.

The two issues here are interlinked. You have a sweary U12 coach where some of the lads didn't want to play for his team. The club executive should have dealt with this coach and told him to tone down his behaviour. It doesn't matter how much of a stalwart, servant or how good of a man he otherwise is.

The failure to deal with the first problem means the second problem presents itself: children trying to together out for the next level up. It's not made clear why the secretary was so upset at two young lads doing this although I can think of reasons - like perhaps encouraging other players to leave U12, but he handled it terribly. If the club we're unhappy with 11 year olds playing U14, they shouldn't have been let tog out. They should have been brought to their parents and the situation explained to them. And so what if noses were put out of joint.

At the end of the day, what we are talking about is a sports club, nothing more - that perspective should not be lost. That secretary should be thanking his lucky stars that those lads didn't concoct a much more sinister story.

Of course the follow up after the complaints was handled shambolically. Total head in the sand stuff until they had to deal with it. Finally forced to deal with it, they then circled the wagons.

The two lads in question may have already rigged out when the club secretary became aware they were there. The article does say one of the parents dropped them to the game. They may have got there before the secretary. People are busy. I have done the job before and teams can arrive very early to warm up, so I may not always get there before then.
Maybe when he started to write out the team sheet then he became aware of their presence and didn't want to embarrass them by asking them tog back in on the spot in front of the others. That really would create a sh1tstorm. Having a quiet word would be better in that case, but ideally leaving it after to speak with the parents would have been best, but we all do make mistakes.

joebloggs32

Gravelly wrote: »

I see this "he was only a volunteer" excuse being raised time and again on this thread, and have heard it raised as an excuse for unprofessional/stupid/biased behaviour in clubs on numerous occasions. I've volunteered for all of my adult life in sports coaching, and would never use this as an excuse. If someone expects to be paid for basic human decency or adherence to the rules THEN THEY SHOULDN'T BE COACHING KIDS. It frightens me that this needs to be pointed out. Every person coaching kids nowadays has gone through at least a basic coaching course and a child protection course - no excuses, no bullshït, if you can't or don't want to do the right thing, don't coach kids.

Neither do I expect to be paid, or anyone I have ever met either at underage level, or acting as club officers. You missed my point.

Gravelly

joebloggs32 wrote: »

Neither do I expect to be paid, or anyone I have ever met either at underage level, or acting as club officers. You missed my point.

I didn't. You tried to reinforce it in your next post. I wouldn't want you coaching my kids if that is your attitude. The coaches fücked up, and weren't man enough to admit it, the club fücked up and tried to double down to "protect the club"

*EDIT* Just noticed now you are a teacher. Jesus.

Guy:Incognito

big_drive wrote: »

Interesting read.
Easy to see why it’s hard to get volunteers in clubs , it’s dangerous these days. You could be accused of anything, often falsely

It's hard to be accused of stuff if you don't put yourself in a situation of being alone with 2 kids in a dressing room.

Guy:Incognito

Choochtown wrote: »

Let's get this much clear:

Kimmage is not highlighting kids being made to play out of their age bracket. In fact his article is very much supportive of the parents who decided to put their 10 year old kids in the u14 squad due to the U12 mentor using the f word at a training session.

I am not condoning the language at all but Kimmage has based his sensationalised article around this very minor incident.

It is extremely unfair that this mentor (remember the only accusation against him is that he used the f word during a training session) has been named and shamed in a national newspaper. Someone who freely gives his time to train the kids. Someone who it appears wasn't even approached by the parents in question about his language. They went straight to Croke Park (and it appears Paul Kimmage as well) about this very minor incident.

The irony here is that Kimmage triumphantly writes about the parent being cautioned for "his emotive language" when he talks to the GAA National Children's Officer!!!

Pure hypocrisy from Kimmage who clearly has a problem with the GAA.

Did you read the article or what? A club official, not even the coach of the team, shut himself in a room alone with 2 kids at the very least. On top of that, if the kids are to believed, he was intimidating and bullied them. After all this the club rallied around and acted completely in their own self interest and siding with the adults involved and

I have no connection to gaa other than my son plays underage gaa. I've been less than impressed with some of the goings on with his club. That's without even saying anything about the ability of the coaches or their inability to see the playing issues with the team. I hadn't played gaa since primary school and rarely get to see his matches because they clash with my own matches but i can see in a couple of minutes what's lacking in his game in particular and go through it with him. None of the stuff I talk to him about is ever said by coaches when I ask him. I'd really question whether they've ever played the game.

I do coach his rugby team though so I've plenty of experience being on both sides of the fence. The club acted appallingly in this instance and the amount of apologists on just the first couple of pages of this thread wouldn't be showing the gaa in a good light from the outside imo.

Guy:Incognito

Choochtown wrote: »

You do realise that

1. That is an unproved version of events from a parent who heard something whilst in the stand from "a neighbour's boy"

2. That is not the same mentor who is alleged to have sworn at the kids

??

You reckon he never even mentioned any of it to his son before or in the months the hearings dragged on for? Never asked his side of it?That the whole while, the son never asked what was going on and it was all based on some other kid coming up and telling him in the stand what happened?

The guy wasn't a mentor at all, going by the article btw, he was a club official. He had no business being in the dressing room alone talking to the boys ing he first p,are.

Tell me how

ebbsy wrote:

Yes they should have. I would have put that guy in hospital and he wouldn't have seen me coming.

Seriously???

Over an unpleasant but relatively minor series of events. What sort of example would that be to your 10 year old? How many coaches would stay volunteering if one of them ended up in the hospital over something like this.

Talk about overreacting.

Someone said it earlier, the problem isn't so much the original event, (swearing by a coach or the 2 lads being spoken to by a single adult) but how the club tried to manipulate the situation since these issues were raised.

joebloggs32

Gravelly wrote: »

I didn't. You tried to reinforce it in your next post. I wouldn't want you coaching my kids if that is your attitude. The coaches fücked up, and weren't man enough to admit it, the club fücked up and tried to double down to "protect the club"

*EDIT* Just noticed now you are a teacher. Jesus.

Nowhere did I say that I would condone the actions of the secretary IF they were true. I am just looking at it from both sides of the argument which most people here are not. As a history teacher that's what I always do. Never take anything as gospel without knowing all the facts, which we don't here.
I have personal experience of this as something similar happened to my father about 20 years ago when the sunday world ran a story and slapped his photo across it. It wasn't to with GAA but another sporting organisation. He was never contacted by them ahead of publication, they just ran the story as someone in that club was pushing an agenda.

Peatys

Ardent wrote: »

Whatever about which side of these stories you believe, you can't excuse the club's behaviour in dealing with the complaints - for example, rallying support at an impromptu meeting to which the complainants were not invited. What were they trying to achieve there? Is that how you run a club?

The club say that the complainants were invited.

Bonzo Delaney

ebbsy wrote: »

Yes they should have. I would have put that guy in hospital and he wouldn't have seen me coming.

Have you anything else to add here apart from looking to fight someone

Working class heroes

Peatys wrote: »

The club say that the complainants were invited.

The complainants say otherwise.

Bonzo Delaney

Peatys wrote: »

The club say that the complainants were invited.

The very end of the article states thst all the u12 parents were invited to the meeting ....but the two 10 yr olds were move to the u 14 panel which sort of makes the club look imcopentent

dieselbug

Bullying, from start to finish. easy to say the coach only used a few swear words but I think there was probably a bit more to it. Swearing and shouting at a child is intimidating and frightening from the child's perspective and would probably put many a child off participating in sport for life.

When the parents took a stand against it the reaction was to attempt to bully the parents, complainants.

You can analyse it to death but put simply bullying from start to finish.

PARlance

Peatys wrote: »

The club say that the complainants were invited.

What I gathered was that the AE was being quite "coy" by saying that all parents of the U12 team were invited... the complainants had withdrawn their kids from the U12s.

That's what I took from it anyway.

Mountain out of a molehill for me. Very poor behaviour from a lot of folk but it falls short of the scandal that Kimmage has been desperately craving. Lance is proving to be some void for him.

ford2600

This whole thing is a bit sad; Athenry needs the GAA and the quicker they get this sorted and move on the better for everyone. A 2 page spread in a national newspaper probably hasn't helped.

Just an outside* perspective on why this might have happened.

Athenry has grown hugely over the last 10-20 years. A lot of the new people in town probably have children playing GAA, while the older members who were involved in clubs huge successes are still involved. IME meshing the new and old in a GAA context isn't always easy. There is always going to be a conflict.

There has always been a huge divide within my own club, sister football and hurling clubs with different identities and names but with same players/supporters/pitch etc. Over the years there was an uneasy peace until the juvenile club grew and the new "outside" members went WTF at an AGM and pointed at the huge fcuking elephant in the room! Its still evolving but a few noses were out of joint for a while.

Given how much hurling matters in east Galway I'd wonder is that the back drop here.

*a good friend moved to Athenry in about 2003 and I visited a few times so I would be aware of growth of town. 2 years ago on a cycle from west Waterford to Wesport I stopped in a petrol station in Athenry. The lad on till looked familiar until I realised it was Eugene Cloonan; we had a grand chat about cycling/gaa and injury! It reminded me how great GAA is and how accessible and humble a lot of its stars are

Buer

Choochtown wrote: »

Why go to Paul Kimmage?

You seem far more concerned that the article was published than the actual content. That's a problem in itself.

The issue here isn't that someone spoke to the SI (and we don't know who went to them whether it was parents, a disgruntled club member, a member of the public etc.) or that someone who is unfit to be coaching children was named in the media. This is all deflection and whataboutery that fails to acknowledge the major problem.

The issue is the complete disregard shown by a major club for the guidelines their organisation has set out for the mentoring of children and compounded by their attempt to muddy the waters and undermine the complainants. There's a good reason why the club has been suspended from juvenile competition.

slegs

WHL wrote: »

I’m involved in soccer while my young lad plays soccer and GAA. Why is it being insinuated that this is anti-GAA. If everything reported is true, the club are in the wrong. The GAA have investigated and suspended the club from juvenile activity until they sort it out. Is this not positive. I don’t know of any soccer, rugby or any other club suspended in a similar manner by their parent association. It’s not about whether the U10 player or the U12 coach and club secretary are right. It’s about an U10 player having a grievance and whether the club were willing to investigate properly.
I think that the GAA were slow to react but they have done the right thing - and I have no evidence that other sporting organisations would do the right thing in similar circumstances. Fair dues to the GAA

Spot on. Well done GAA for dealing with a club that quite clearly thought the policies and procedures around issues like this didn’t apply to them.

I didn’t think I would see the day when GAA central would intervene in this kind of affair. This is a big step forward.

ccmp

slegs wrote: »

WHL wrote: »

I’m involved in soccer while my young lad plays soccer and GAA. Why is it being insinuated that this is anti-GAA. If everything reported is true, the club are in the wrong. The GAA have investigated and suspended the club from juvenile activity until they sort it out. Is this not positive. I don’t know of any soccer, rugby or any other club suspended in a similar manner by their parent association. It’s not about whether the U10 player or the U12 coach and club secretary are right. It’s about an U10 player having a grievance and whether the club were willing to investigate properly.
I think that the GAA were slow to react but they have done the right thing - and I have no evidence that other sporting organisations would do the right thing in similar circumstances. Fair dues to the GAA

Spot on. Well done GAA for dealing with a club that quite clearly thought the policies and procedures around issues like this didn’t apply to them.

I didn’t think I would see the day when GAA central would intervene in this kind of affair. This is a big step forward.

While acknowledging that there is more to this story than what is articulated in this article, I agree with the sentiment above. It's great to see central GAA dealing with this rather than brushing it under the carpet. A step forward in my eyes.

blanch152

Choochtown wrote: »

What campaign? What "village idiots"?

More innuendo.

One of the most sinister aspects of the article was the meeting arranged with other parents following the first hearing. After being admonished to keep the complaint confidential, the Club executive called all parents to a meeting and told them about it.

That is absolutely astonishing and I cannot see how any of them can remain in place. It is a disgraceful way to behave in an issue affecting the welfare of children.

nice_guy80

Connected to this is a huge reason why so many fellas are put off going into teaching

Having to deal with parents who are just waiting for the chance to stir things

Guy:Incognito

Peatys wrote: »

The club say that the complainants were invited.

Well that would have been better so. They could have been made stand at the front of the room to be laugh at in person and told hold the club is in the right and would be circling the wagons around the people involved. I supposed at least they'd have known all the people were going to show up at the next hearing.

Guy:Incognito

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Connected to this is a huge reason why so many fellas are put off going into teaching

Having to deal with parents who are just waiting for the chance to stir things

If your 11 year old son told you a man, not his teacher, but say a board member of the school, was in a room alone with him, giving out to him and intimidating him, would you be fine with that and tell him he must have done something wrong?

Sure maybe go back to the days of sending him up to the priests house alone to discuss what a bold boy he is in privacy............

ebbsy

Trasna1 wrote: »

Whataboutery at it's finest.

The two issues here are interlinked. You have a sweary U12 coach where some of the lads didn't want to play for his team. The club executive should have dealt with this coach and told him to tone down his behaviour. It doesn't matter how much of a stalwart, servant or how good of a man he otherwise is.

The failure to deal with the first problem means the second problem presents itself: children trying to tog out for the next level up. It's not made clear why the secretary was so upset at two young lads doing this although I can think of reasons - like perhaps encouraging other players to leave U12, but he handled it terribly. If the club we're unhappy with 11 year olds playing U14, they shouldn't have been let tog out. They should have been brought to their parents and the situation explained to them. And so what if noses were put out of joint.

At the end of the day, what we are talking about is a sports club, nothing more - that perspective should not be lost. That secretary should be thanking his lucky stars that those lads didn't concoct a much more sinister story.

Of course the follow up after the complaints was handled shambolically. Total head in the sand stuff until they had to deal with it. Finally forced to deal with it, they then circled the wagons.

Great point.

The_Honeybadger

blanch152 wrote: »

One of the most sinister aspects of the article was the meeting arranged with other parents following the first hearing. After being admonished to keep the complaint confidential, the Club executive called all parents to a meeting and told them about it.

That is absolutely astonishing and I cannot see how any of them can remain in place. It is a disgraceful way to behave in an issue affecting the welfare of children.

This is the main part that really gets me too, how on earth could they have thought that this was the correct course of action. It was an absolutely crazy thing to do in the circumstances.

A lot of posters here seem to want to brush this aside as the club simply handling it badly, I think it goes beyond that, it looks like a devious and deliberate attempt to undermine and exact a sort of revenge on the complainants by making them public enemies in the community. The stupidity of the officers in this act is mind boggling.

ebbsy

Choochtown wrote: »

And what would the complaint to the Gardai be?

I actually agree with you. If there was a genuine complaint then go to the Gardai.

Why go to Paul Kimmage?

Guards or GAA w'ont do anything. Going to Kimmage or dealing with it yourself is the only way.

nice_guy80

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

If your 11 year old son told you a man, not his teacher, but say a board member of the school, was in a room alone with him, giving out to him and intimidating him, would you be fine with that and tell him he must have done something wrong?

Sure maybe go back to the days of sending him up to the priests house alone to discuss what a bold boy he is in privacy............

where did I suggest that?
parents listen and retell things to suit their own agendas all the time.

I see it every day of the week

Hitman3000

Interesting how so many here are willing to accuse the parents of having an agenda but have no issue with the behaviour of the club officials.

Ray Bloody Purchase

The article itself seemed to be a bit all over the shop. Very poorly written. It seems slightly directionless. Even from this thread there seems to be differences in what people conclude its primary aim is.

nice_guy80

Hitman3000 wrote: »

Interesting how so many here are willing to accuse the parents of having an agenda but have no issue with the behaviour of the club officials.

Never said the parents have an agenda in this case.

I've dealt with parents over alleged incidents in a club before
Where the child said one thing happened or was said and the parent was adamant that it had
When all evidence pointed to the opposite

How many of the parents were prepared to get involved and coach a team?

Tell me how

Ray Bloody Purchase wrote: »

The article itself seemed to be a bit all over the shop. Very poorly written. It seems slightly directionless. Even from this thread there seems to be differences in what people conclude its primary aim is.

Those differences are largely coming from biases which posters possess outside of the influence of the article.

The writing style of the article is very much Paul Kimmage. A reference or quote from popular culture, in this case Animal Farm to provide context, chronological narrative mixed with dialog.

Paul would argue that all he is doing is telling a story, he does not claim anyone is right or wrong. We presume he is on the side of the complainants but that is our interpretation as opposed to any direct words.